Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Glenn Beck took to his radio airwaves Monday and offered a long, rambling monologue about the New York Times report that he and Fox News may be parting ways. Beck announced that he had “decided that the media and the American left have become nothing more than a shampoo label and should be disregarded as we disregard most shampoo labels... because they all say the same thing: lather, rinse, repeat. That's all they do.” But Beck went on to spend an awful lot of the next 14 minutes or so regarding that particular shampoo label - especially pointing out how it paled in comparison to his own insights, righteousness and grasp of world affairs. And yet, Beck affirmed the central part of the Times report – that he and Fox News may indeed separate. And then Beck melodramatically vowed that somewhere, somehow we'll all be together. You tell me if this doesn't sound like a man whose contract is not likely to be renewed.

At about 5 minutes into the video below, Beck admits, “Yes, my contract (at Fox News) is up at the end of the year. Contracts do that. Fox and I have had a great relationship and the current contract does come to an end in December. My admiration for the people that work at Fox and the people that have built Fox cannot be overstated...”

In classic Beck style, he issued his standard disclaimer of "I'm not saying that" God caused this disaster to send us a message, but God caused this disaster to send us a message. Please, Fox News, dump Glenn now before it's too late. Please conservatives, dump Glenn now before it's too late.

"We can't see the connections here," he said on his show Monday. "I'm not saying God is causing earthquakes - well I'm not not saying that either!"

"What God does is God's business," Beck continued. "But I'll tell you this...there's a message being sent. And that is, 'Hey you know that stuff we're doing? Not really working out real well. Maybe we should stop doing some of it.' I'm just saying."

Beck continued trying to make a connection between human behavior and the natural disasters that have wreaked havoc in Japan, even casually mentioning "radical Islam" before revealing what he called "the answer."

"The answer is, buckle up!" he said. "Because it's going to be a bumpy ride."

In light of the disasters that have devastated Japan, the Fox host stressed people should follow the biblical Ten Commandments, or what he referred to as "10 rules of thumb."

Glenn Beck fans and foes, take note: For those wondering if Fox News -- which is “contemplating life without Beck” -- can survive, last week was a good indicator that it can.

Beck, whose contract is up in December, was on vacation -- with Judge Andrew Napolitano filling in on Beck’s 5 p.m. show Monday through Thursday (Friday's show was pre-empted by coverage of the earthquake in Japan, and anchored by Fox’s Shepard Smith).

And the jury is in on the Judge: Napolitano held his own, maintaining roughly the same audience that Beck has drawn in 2011 -- and, like Beck usually does, beat CNN, MSNBC, HLN and CNBC combined in total viewers.

Here are the four-day averages for Mon.-Thurs. last week, provided by Nielsen:

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

It’s hard to tell how much of what Beck says is sincere and how much is for show. Whatever the case, and even taking into account the entire MSNBC lineup, Glenn Beck has become the most disturbing personality on cable television. One cannot watch him for any length of time without being struck by his affinity for conspiracies and for portraying himself as the great decoder of events. Political movements are not just wrong; they are infiltrated by a web of malevolent forces. Others see the shadows on the wall; Beck alone sees the men casting them. The danger when one paints the world in such conspiratorial terms is that it devalues the rational side of politics. It encourages a cast of mind that looks to expose enemies rather than to engage in arguments. Few things, after all, are as they appear.

...

It looks to me like it’s only a matter of time — and I suspect not much time — until he blows apart professionally. If and when that happens, one can only hope that conservatism as a movement will have created enough distance from Beck to mitigate the damage.

Monday, February 21, 2011

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Beck has found a new bogey man this week ... GOOGLE. He's not saying that people should boycott Google, just don't use it because we have to be careful who we do business with these days. Um, OK.

Does he come up with this 5 minutes before the show? If not Google, what will Glenn use the next time he wants to connect two unrelated events? Hello, Yahoo.

Conservative pundit Glenn Beck said he will no longer use Google or its products because of perceived ties to government agencies and its involvement in the uprising in Egypt, he said on his Fox television program Wednesday.

"I'm really not sure that I want my search engine involved in government overthrows, good or bad," Beck said on his Fox show. "There is a strange thing going on with this search engine and our government. And we all have to choose who we do business with."

However, most of his vitriol was aimed at Google working with "hardcore leftists."

A couple of great parody sites that use Glenn Beck style logic on him. Just start with any rumor and add a lot of "some people say" , "I don't know, I am just asking questions" , "why won't he respond to the allegations" and BAM you to can play Glenn Beck. These satire sites demonstrate how dangerous the faux-journalism, circular logic, and vague accusations of Beck and other pundits are.